Everything I Want
by Spikesgirl58
Summary: Napoleon has everything he wants, doesn't he? In response to a prompt on Older Not Dead. Warning Slash implied


When I was ten, I had everything that I wanted. Even though money was tight, I had nice clothes, a shiny new bike, and a slingshot. The teachers spoke well of me to my parents and my classmates really seemed to like me. I was never lost for something to do or someone to do it with. I was always picked first for a team if I wasn't the captain to begin with. There was plenty to eat, a warm house, loving parents. How could I want for more? And yet I wasn't content.

When I was eighteen, I had everything I wanted. High school was an extension of grade school and I came out of it as the prom king, the track star, a gifted and respected debater and at the top of my class. At night, there were soft, perfumed arms to hold me and always a buddy or two to hang out with. I worked and trained hard. Everything I had was achieved through discipline and determination. Nothing was beyond my grasp. How could I want for more? And yet I wasn't content.

When I was twenty-two, I had everything I wanted. I enlisted and was assigned to a crack team with a brave and intelligent leader. From him I learned what it took to inspire those around me and that we were only as strong as our weakest link. From him I learned to be that weakest link and elevate the men around me to great heights. I also learned that there was something to be said for the arms of a fellow man instead of a woman. Lacking one, I turned to the other and was not disappointed. I learned what love and friendship, real friendship, meant. I had the respect of my squad and my officers and was at the top of my game. How could I want for more? And yet I wasn't content.

When I was twenty-eight, I had everything I wanted. I was the youngest Section Two head UNCLE ever had. Waverly was already making noises about grooming me for Section One. I was the top scorer in Survival School. I traveled the world and spoke with leaders from other nations as equals. I wasn't rich, but I was very comfortable. Most of all, I liked the man I'd become and my fellow human beings responded to that. There was never a moment I was lonely on either side of the bed sheet, if you know what I mean. They called me a playboy and a jetsetter. Both were true. How could I want for more? And yet I wasn't content.

When I was thirty-one, I had everything I wanted. I was still at the top of my game, a man to be caught, yet I was slippery and impossible to trap. Then I was given a partner. Up to this point, I'd been on my own, part of a team, but apart from it as well. Suddenly there was someone beside me who wasn't impressed with the man I'd been, only the man I was. At that moment, my life began to reinvent itself and I became more adept at strategies, more cunning with my plans. For the first time in my life, I didn't have something I wanted. For in those blue eyes, hidden beneath perpetually too long blond hair, I saw an equal and someone unobtainable. Suddenly, I had everything I wanted and wanted none of it, not if I couldn't have Illya.

When I was forty-two, I had nothing I wanted.

"Napoleon?"

"Over here by the filing cabinets." My office was now the only one with windows. I was the youngest Section One UNCLE had ever had and no doubt the loneliest. I did for myself most of the time, although Miss Davis was still there for dictation and typing. Anything else I took care of, like pulling old rosters and assignment files. It wasn't that I didn't trust her. I did it to fill the hours I was there. Whenever I left the office on business, it was with a mass of Section Two and Three agents young enough to be my sons and daughters. When I left to go home, I was taken and tucked in behind my secure door and left there until the next morning when I was collected to come back to the office, unloved and uncared for.

I don't know how Waverly did it. Being married helped, at least he had someone waiting for him. I'd had so many bed partners, but there wasn't one of them I wanted. I had no one. Well, someone, but he didn't have a clue.

Illya came around the corner and grinned. The years had been kind to him. True, he was not the wet-behind- the-ears kid he was when he first walked through Waverly's door. What the hell, I can't believe Illya was ever a kid… he just looked like one. Now over forty like me, he still looked a man ten years his junior.

"You wanted me?"

_Want you, need you, love you_ I thought, but hid my longings behind a glib smile. "How goes the war?"

"Actually it's pretty quiet at the moment, which isn't always a good thing." He looked past me to the open file drawers and the stack of manila folders on top of the cabinet. "Looking for anything in particular?"

_Oh, you have no idea._ Yet I couldn't tell him that, not Illya. "Have you seen the Nantucket Affair file?"

"That should be down in the vaults. I'll go get it…" He started to turn.

"No! Stay, please?"

He looked at me with worry lines decorating his brow. "Okay, now I know something is up. What is wrong, Napoleon?"

"Nothing… I'm just… tired." I gestured to the small sitting area. Many days we'd sat there, drinking the Old Man's scotch and bourbon. They seemed like a lifetime ago.

"A gilded cage is still a cage." Ever obedient, Illya walked over to the bar and started to mix a drink. He didn't ask what I wanted. He knew.

That's the way it was with partners, except I couldn't call him partner anymore. Now I was his boss, although nothing had changed. I'd been his boss for most of our days in Section Two, but it hadn't made a difference back then. I wondered why it did now. "That it is, my friend."

Illya sat and slumped back. There was no way to get comfortable on that couch. Waverly wasn't a fool. An uncomfortable guest is a forthcoming one. "So then talk to me, Napoleon. What is troubling you?"

"I miss you." The words tumbled out before I realized it and I did my best not to look aghast at my confession.

"You saw me just a few hours ago at the Section Head staff meeting."

"That's not what I mean." I dropped my gaze to the small tumbler I held. "When we were partners, we were together even when circumstances forced us to opposite ends of the globe. We are connected. Now… nothing. I'm so tired of being alone all the time. Nights are the worst." I hazarded a look then and was met with a shy, almost flirtatious smile.

"If you are lonely at night, Napoleon, you merely have to ask."

Now I'm forty-six, I have everything I wanted. Every morning I wake to a warm presence in my bed, to a body I've learned as well as my own. I know all of Illya's passion and his need. I know his strengths and weaknesses, just as he knows mine. For the first time in my life, I have love. Nothing else is important. I have everything I want… for now I have Illya.


End file.
